Study finds Colorado has the highest rates of teen e-cigarette use in the country

The Colorado Health Institute released a report called Vapor Trail, which synthesizes hundreds of pages of research about e-cigarettes.

The report highlights what is definitively known about the health risks e-cigarettes and explored policy option. Vapor Trail also revealed that Colorado has the highest rates of teen e-cigarette use in the country.

There isn’t clear data about why teenagers in Colorado are using at such high rates. This is just one of the many unknowns about e-cigarettes that makes regulating them more difficult.

According to the Colorado Health Institute one of the other big questions right now around e-cigarettes is whether or not they are an effective tool to quit smoking.

Jalyn Ingalls is a research analyst at The Colorado Health Institute who worked on Vapor Trail.

She told KGNU’s Nora Thomas “we are at a critical time trying to regulate a product that some people say could cause a lot of good and a lot of other people are saying might cause harm by creating a new generation of people addicted to nicotine.”

While all of this debate about policy and health risks takes , the e-cigarette industry continues to grow, as the industry is projected to make a record two-billion-dollars in sales this year.